Results 1-20 of 502 for garda speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Acknowledgement and Apology to the Families and to the Victims of the Stardust Tragedy: Statements (23 Apr 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...died with those young lives taken in the Stardust - with those young people so brutally injured in the Stardust. The news of the fire and fatalities had spread through the early morning. Families gathered at the local Garda station desperately seeking information about their loved ones. They were told to get the bus – to get the bus to the hospital or the morgue. This...

Ceapachán an Taoisigh agus Ainmniú Chomhaltaí an Rialtais - Appointment of Taoiseach and Nomination of Members of Government (9 Apr 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...to make that statement. I know well that the inner city communities I represent do not feel safe. They are scourged by antisocial behaviour, drug pushing and crime. They have been abandoned because Garda resources are spread too thin. They are angry because Fine Gael has undermined and underfunded investment in community, youth work and community development, all of the initiatives...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Departmental Properties (20 Feb 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: 237. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the Garda is still actively using a premises (details supplied); and if so, how long it will remain there. [7930/24]

Confidence in the Minister for Justice: Motion (5 Dec 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...stabbing nightmare is the perpetrator. Those responsible for the riot are the rioters. But it is the responsibility of the Minister for Justice to ensure that our streets are safe and to ensure An Garda Síochána have the resources it needs. She failed abysmally in these responsibilities, with very dire consequences. Bhí an tAire, An Teachta McEntee, i gceannas nuair a...

Confidence in the Minister for Justice: Motion (5 Dec 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...drop-offs with the ever-present hum of menace, risk and an overriding lack of personal safety. Over the course of Fine Gael’s 12 years in government, people have been robbed of their safety. Garda stations have been closed or put on reduced hours. Community Garda numbers have been decimated. Gone are the days of the garda on the beat, which is the very bedrock of effective...

Confidence in the Minister for Justice: Motion (5 Dec 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...of three of their classmates, and as Leanne Flynn lay in her hospital bed, it was back to business as usual for the area surrounding Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire - strangers street drinking and not a garda in sight.

Policing, Protests and Public Order: Statements (28 Nov 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...We are now in a bizarre situation where it seems the only people who did not see this coming are the people who are actually in charge, namely, the people in leadership positions, the Minister, the Garda Commissioner and, it seems, the entire benches of the Government. You are the only people who did not see it coming. Let me tell you this: you do not have to convince anyone here, or...

Policing, Protests and Public Order: Statements (28 Nov 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Garda Commissioner let us down.

Policing, Protests and Public Order: Statements (28 Nov 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...here, so let me start here. On any given day, you can walk from Heuston Station, you can come along the quays, you can go onto O’Connell Bridge and up onto Nassau Street, and you will not see a garda. When you turn the corner and come to this place, I bet you it is the first time you will see a uniformed garda. Equally, you can walk up O’Connell Street up to Parnell Square...

Policing, Protests and Public Order: Statements (28 Nov 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...Dublin was deserted; because the Government has failed. As for Fine Gael in government, here are the stats for you. I know you are keen on numbers, Darragh. Since 2009, you have closed 130 Garda stations. You have cut Garda numbers by 450 in Dublin. Despite all your promises about law and order, we have fewer gardaí on the beat now than we had in 2009. This is despite an...

Policing, Protests and Public Order: Statements (28 Nov 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: That is the reason we have full confidence in An Garda Síochána and zero confidence in the Minister for Justice, the Government and, for that matter, the Garda Commissioner himself.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (28 Nov 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...cars and buses, smashed-up shopfronts and the experiences of intimidation bear testimony to the destruction inflicted on Dublin by a mob of thugs. Public safety collapsed, people were endangered, and gardaí were isolated and assaulted. The idea that this violence could not be predicted is a nonsense. This situation has been building for months. By 2.30 on Thursday afternoon it was...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (7 Nov 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...rural Ireland. Some years ago we had an horrendous levels of deaths on our roads and there was a multi-agency plan and approach, which was properly resourced, between the Road Safety Authority, An Garda Síochána and the local authorities. Consequentially, we saw the numbers of deaths drop but we are going backwards now and this is a cause for concern for all of us. The number...

Final Report of the Independent Scoping Exercise into the Circumstances surrounding the Death of Mr. Shane O'Farrell: Statements (17 Oct 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...and hurdles are erected time and again and the State has circled the wagons. As my colleague, Deputy Carthy, stated, it has been alleged for a long time that Zigimantas Gridziuska was a Garda informer. He was a criminal with 42 criminal convictions who should have been in prison when he knocked down Shane and left him to die. Serious questions as to how this man was not behind bars...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Oct 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Garda Representative Association, GRA, has started its protest against roster changes that are due to kick in from next month. This action sees gardaí refusing voluntary overtime. It is an escalation in a dispute that has deepened and intensified over the past year. It is very concerning that matters have come to this point. I have no doubt the public is very alarmed at this turn...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (27 Sep 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: I join in commending members of An Garda Síochána, our Defence Forces, the Naval Service and the Army Ranger Wing on the successful operation off our coast yesterday. It demonstrates the need to invest in Naval Service capacity and in the wider Defence Forces. The truth is that our Naval Service cannot monitor our seas effectively and this is due to decades of under-investment....

Ceisteanna - Questions: An Garda Síochána (24 May 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...years since Shane was killed by a man who should have been in prison and five years since the Dáil and Seanad adopted resolutions calling for an independent public inquiry into the actions of An Garda Síochána and other State agencies before and after Shane's death. The scoping exercise that was carried out is a mechanism devised by the previous Government to delay acting...

Organised Crime: Statements (20 Apr 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...-class communities. These gangs must be smashed, these thugs put behind bars, where they belong. That means targeting and confiscating criminal assets and building the resources and morale of An Garda Síochána at every level, but with an emphasis on community policing. Government policies have seen Garda stations close, members of An Garda Síochána walk away in...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (28 Mar 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: That is high for the Garda.

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (21 Mar 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...tell us where those 3,000 households will go in the event of losing the roof over their heads? Will the Taoiseach guarantee to this House that no family will be forced to present itself at a Garda station to be accommodated? Can the Taoiseach give those guarantees as he moves ahead with the Government's catastrophic decision to lift an eviction ban and to plunge thousands of households...